I have no sympathy for what Russia is doing in Ukraine, nor any interest in defending the moves by Vladimir Putin that have led to the precipice of war.
But I was taken aback by the most recent Thomas Friedman column in the New York Times, in which he dug up an interview with George F. Kennan, a great sage of Cold War politics and history, sometimes (including in Friedman’s column) called “the architect of America’s successful containment of the Soviet Union.”
Kennan died 17 years ago. I can’t say whether Friedman found this in notebook or, more likely, wrote about it at the time. But in 1998, young Friedman asked old Kennan (then-94) what he thought about the expansion of NATO to include as members the recently ex-communist nations of central and eastern Europe getting every closer to the borders of Russia.
Kennan replied: “I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the founding fathers of this country turn over in their graves.
“We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a lighthearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs. What bothers me is how superficial and ill-informed the whole Senate debate was. I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe.
“Don’t people understand? Our differences in the Cold War were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime. And Russia’s democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we’ve just signed up to defend from Russia. Of course, there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are — but this is just wrong.”
Again, I’m not endorsing Kennan’s view that it was a mistake to expand NATO (the expansion was just getting started at the time of the interview). Nor does it give me any sympathy for Vladimir Putin’s current moves, which have the world on the edge of war over Ukraine.
We can’t go back and see what happens differently. I’m happy for the people of the various former Soviet-bloc nations whose lives have become freer and more prosperous. Or, perhaps, stop the expansion when it reached the actual borders of former Soviet territory.
As far as I know, Ukrainians are not saying they wish they were still allied with Russia. And I know I am rooting for them at the moment to avoid a terrible war. It just seems like the right time to read what Kennan said would happen and perhaps wonder what might have been done differently. I don’t claim to know.
Russian V.E.B. bank has been under sanctions since 2014 when Russia took Crimea. That bank hasn’t done business in America for 8 years, what do the new sanctions do? Russia can’t sell their debt to USA but China is still funding them. The USA imports twice the amount of Russian oil as we did a year ago, that stoppage will increase OUR gas prices.
What in the world are we doing?
Joe, I know hating on Biden is important to you, but can you address what the US should be doing?
RB, yes that is easy. We should be drilling here for oil and gas, not sending Russia our money for their oil. The same with mining and minerals, why pay China and Russia? We should demand NATO has funding from all members and allow them to do their job, stop Russian aggression in Eastern Europe. That is why NATO was formed. We looked the other way when in 2014 Russia invaded Crimea and NATO did nothing. If we are going to sanction Russia, get the world to come along and hit them hard. Sanctioning a Russian bank we have sanctions on from 2014 is beyond weak!
Yes, very simple. Or is it?
“We should be drilling here for oil and gas, not sending Russia our money for their oil.”
How would that have stopped an invasion of Ukraine?
“The same with mining and minerals, why pay China and Russia?”
Same answer, but you know that minerals are located only in certain places, right? We can’t just say “%&#@ you! We’re going to mine our molybdenum here!”
You also know that Russia imports more minerals than it exports, right?
“We should demand NATO has funding from all members and allow them to do their job, stop Russian aggression in Eastern Europe. That is why NATO was formed. We looked the other way when in 2014 Russia invaded Crimea and NATO did nothing.”
NATO is a mutual defense pact. It has no authority to make a military response to an attack on a non-member (Ukraine is not a member). The only time the mutual defense clause was activated was after 9/11, when the terror attacks on the US were deemed an attack on all members.
RB, giving Russia our money funds their military! Why would we do that? How does drilling here in America help? Really? Watch oil prices soar here, that does not help America. NATO can by consensus, can get involved in Ukraine. If NATO, who was designed to hold back Russian aggression, decides to do nothing, that shows the value of NATO. It validates what I’ve said for decades, NATO is an American taxpayer dollar guzzling machine that should be disbanded. Big Global Bureaucracy run totally amuck, as they all do! Biden has no chance of uniting the world against Russia and America going it alone again has lost all luster, if it ever had any!
But please Democrats, do more than sanction a Russian bank that is already sanctioned. Come up with some penalties that hurt the Russian economy not policies that pay into the Russian economy !
“It validates what I’ve said for decades, NATO is an American taxpayer dollar guzzling machine that should be disbanded.”
I will give Herr Hair credit for modernizing the funding formula for NATO (since that was His deal, aren’t you supposed to be in favor of it, without question?).
Anyway, how is NATO supposed to act if it’s disbanded?
“NATO can by consensus, can get involved in Ukraine.”
No, it cannot. There is a little stumbling block known as “international law” that says NATO cannot just move in and protect a non-member. NATO has the authority to act only in defense of members, as it did when it came to the defense of the United States.
“Biden has no chance of uniting the world against Russia and America going it alone again has lost all luster, if it ever had any!”
Except America is not “going it alone.” Germany has stopped certification of the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia. The UK has also imposed sanctions against Russia and selected Russians.
Can you say ‘fracking’?
We are now a net exporter of natural gas; electric vehicles are about to reduce our petroleum consumption significantly. I would predict that in another 20 years (time to clear most gas vehicles off the road) our main use for petroleum will be the manufacture of plastics.
Welcome to the real world.
We should be moving away from oil and gas like the rest of the world. Trump made this country weaker by trying to do the opposite.
I wholeheartedly agree with Kennan’s assessment. I’ve spent the past week engaged in debate at various internet sites reminding people what the Cold War was about and what NATO was about. I didn’t volunteer to fight and die to defeat the Russians. I volunteered to fight and die to defeat Communism. As an old submariner, I’ve even had the pleasure to meet and exchange breast badges (dolphins) with Russian submariners. The war’s over and we won! Jeesus people. This is another thing Trump was right about.
If the EU wants to form a military alliance to protect themselves from Russia, they shouldn’t be surprised when Russia objects to having their neighbors recruited to join the mob. And they shouldn’t have agreed to buy most of their energy from them either if they were so convinced Putin was going to attack them.
Putin now says his beef is with the EU and how Russia got screwed out of the Ukrainian land mass that was once part of the Soviet Union. That has nothing to do with us. Biden and his incompetent state department are going to cost us and our economy even worse harm than they already have. And maybe that’s why they’re going down this road … to try to distract us from their other disastrous decisions.
It is curious that the conservatives seem to value cheap gas more than the rule of law or international order.
Yup. I know I do.
Given the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I wouldn’t expect gas prices to ease anytime soon. Financial markets are taking a huge hit too. Still thinking this has nothing to do with us?
You would think for national security reasons alone we would be trying to move our economy away from fossil fuels.
Too many fossils fueling the national economy.
What’s amazing to me is the willingness of Republicans to spread Putin’s propaganda.
With all due respect to the memory of Ambassador Kennan, Communist ideology was only a cover for Russian expansionism. The Soviet Union stopped being a revolutionary state shortly after the passing of Lenin. Stalin and his successors were no more interested in the inevitable collapse of capitalism and the withering away of the state than the Tsars were.
Nonsense. Russian expansionism was to spread the Communist ideology. Ask the people who managed to escape what their relatives left behind had to live through.
Then you might want to explain why the works of Karl Marx were not sold to the public in the Soviet Union.
Because Marx (read him!) believed in a necessary progression from feudalism to capitalism to socialism/communism. He expected communism to develop first in the United States and Germany, since they were (and are) thoroughly capitalistic (the means of production is owned by individuals, not by the state).
Russia never got out of feudalism; arguably it is still in it with Putin as the Tsar du jour.
When the Romanoffs were overthrown, the democratic government (Kerensky) lasted a matter of weeks; not long enough to have any effect on Russia’s economic system.
Marx predicted that the state would eventually wither away and die, largely due to inexorable historical forces. There is a good discussion to be had another time about the futility of trying to make history conform to “laws,” but it’s pretty clear that the rulers of the Soviet Union didn’t want the people reading the ideology they were supposed to be following.
There is an anecdote that Mark read an early treatise on “Marxism” and remarked that if that’s what Marxism is, he was not a Marxist.
And the new “Southern Strategy” is complete. I wonder if 1980’s Dennis Tester would be so cavalier as 2022 Dennis Tester with regards to whom was his enemy. It’s really quite hilarious, if not also tragically predictable, to watch as the conservative movement of this country becomes wholly engulfed by the same sort of impulses that drive kleptocratic Russia, and that an agent of the KGB, once among the greatest bogeyman in conservative imagination (when it suited their omnipresent avarice for power) becomes a heroic figure of strength and masculinity.
What’s really tragically predictable is to see the American Left come to despise the Russian people because they discarded communism for capitalism.
What’s really tragically predictable is to see the American Right come to embrace Russia’s leaders after they discarded any pretense towards democracy in favor of oligarchy and authoritarianism.
They did? When? Surely you don’t count oligarchy amongst “capitalist” ideology? Perhaps you weren’t aware Yeltsin has been dead for many years?
I don’t despise the Russian people. I’ve seen what years of a psychopath at the helm has done to them and the country. I despise the Far R here in our country–who are not ‘conservative’ in any way, shape or form– but who are using the exact same playbook here in our country to hold down the ‘little people’, grab control of our elections so we too can have a dictator for life instead of everyone having a voice/vote, destroying our natural resources, lying incessantly & pushing alternate ‘truths’, grabbing all the power, authority & money for themselves, banning & burning books, and on and on and on ad nauseum. There’s a saying, don’t remember who said it offhand, about those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. So here we all are, facing another very probable world War because of 1 deranged psychopath in Russia and just waiting til our own deranged psychopath Trump announces another presidential run in order to truly destroy our federal govn & democracy this time. Because despite so many of us absolutely reviling him and a wide array of charges against him…somehow he continues to have enough goods on some folks to keep causing prosecutors to resign, judges in his pocket to protect him, and REPs in Congress who continue to pledge total fealty to him. I cannot imagine how he does it, and it certainly doesn’t say anything good about the weak delusional types under his spell…but here we are:( And as a result many, many here and abroad face increasing stability and the end of life as we have known it. Despite vast reading all of my life, I have never understood how Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler et al happened, nor do I fully understand this. Nor will I ever. I only know it churns my gut and disgusts me. I really, really need to see the masses rise up and defeat true evil. For good to ultimately prevail over today’s monsters.
INstability!! Why is there no edit function anymore? Sigh….
Man, are the Trumpers really ok with Russia annexing neighboring countries?
None of our business, sir. Would you fight and die to prevent one foreign country from taking over another? Why? People who’ve served think about what we’re willing to die for. Others, not so much.
What difference did it make to the United States if Vietnam went Marxist?
It can be my/our business without actually going to war with Russia. I’m more shocked by the Republicans cheering this invasion.
They are more than ok, they want to apply it here, ie the Southern border. It’s truly a sea-change kind of reversal, the Party of McCarthy now embraces Russia as a model of good government.
Matt, securing our Southern border is similar to Russia invading Ukraine, how?
Because your dear leader suggested we invade Mexico to do so, yesterday, while suggesting that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a perfect parallel.
That’s how we acquired the Southwest from Texas to California.
Mr Terry, how many times has the left cried ” we can’t be the world’s policeman ” when a Rep was president?
The utter hypocrisy of us all is pathetic.
Mainly because the right views “being the world’s policeman” as taking over weaker nations in order to exploit their resources for ourselves, under extremely insufficient pretext. Please find the complaints from the left about peacekeeping missions in say Kosovo, or Somalia for example. I suspect most of your context is in relation to Iraq, which is the example that fills my description, and Vietnam, which is so long ago now as to be irrelevant.
Can you cite examples? Off the top of my head, Ds supported GHWB going after Saddam in Kuwait, and GWB after UbL in Afghanistan. But not GWB going for Saddam in Iraq. Rs did not support WJC in Bosnia.
The list is endless, we just switch sides of the debate depending if our guy is in power
There is a distinction between not wanting to go to war and actively cheering the annexation of another country.
What surprises me most about the Russia/Ukraine development is the speed with which the Republican Party, which, through most of my lifetime, has been an implacable foe of all things Russian, has suddenly embraced the idea that invading a neighboring country is a good idea. In fact, the party deity that is Donald Trump has declared it admirable because it’s such a “smart move” by Putin to send in “peacekeepers” when there was no existing conflict that required such action. I understand that virtually anything devious would appeal to Mr. Trump, but that doesn’t automatically make it something we (meaning the U.S.) should endorse.
Every week, we find more and more evidence that Mr. Trump virtually always places – and placed – his own interests above those of the people who elected him, as well as those who voted for the other candidate, which leaves me wondering just what it is that Dennis Tester is talking about when he writes, “This is another thing Trump was right about.” What was the other thing he was right about, Dennis?
There’s ample historical evidence that isolationism hasn’t served our interests well as a country, so I also wonder what course of action Joe Smith would suggest in place of sanctions. There’s certainly an argument to be made that perhaps we should stop trying to be the world’s policeman, but unless we abdicate that position to China or Russia, what should we be doing instead?
You’ll realize what “other things Trump was right about” the next time you buy gas or groceries. But maybe you don’t have to deal with that these days.
Lol! Yeah. Are you suggesting that next time a hurricane occurs you’ll say “see, if HE was president, we wouldn’t have had that hurricane.” TFG didn’t stop inflation any more than Biden caused it. Rather, it’s likely that the /extent/ of the inflation we’re seeing in the US (inflation is elevated all over the world, but might actually be worse here) is due to his complete failure to reasonably protect Americans from the plague, which limited supply without limiting similarly demand, and pushing to not raise interest rates when it was clear that supply was constrained, which inevitably results in prices rising. But, despite all you “conservatives” being supposedly all about a “free market” you sure don’t know how a free market works, how inflation happens, and market manipulation can be both a good thing and a bad thing. The long and short of it is that inflation is a natural result of a free market, with or without regulation. With regulation, and ONLY with regulation, can you make it relatively predictable. There is exactly ONE good thing that TFG did in his 4 miserable years – he supported the development and roll out of COVID vaccines. And it’s the one thing all the TFGsters will claim is a failure. Oh, how I wonder what color the sky is in your world.
Nonsense. All costs in the marketplace are the result of the cost of energy. When Trump was in office we became energy independent and a NET ENERGY EXPORTER.
On Biden’s first day in office he cancelled the Keystone XL Pipeline which directly led to an oil shortage and higher prices. Then he put a freeze on all new leases and permits for federal oil and gas drilling. Guess what that means? Higher prices for all entities that use gas and oil. Now he’s begging the Saudis to increase production and they laughed at him. And what’s worse, now we’re getting 7-10% of our oil from guess who? Russia!
“Never underestimate Joe’s ability to F things up.” – Barack Obama
Fossil fuels have driven wars, and polluted to earth destructively, while enriching those behind it. No one winds in a war. Ever. And the earth is rapidly spiraling down and if the situation continues unchecked…it will be unable to sustain growth & life. Now I’m aware some on here and in parts of our country ascribe to the notion that the coming apocalypse will right all so it doesn’t matter. But these same ‘believers’ are ingesting bleach and using ivermectin and shunning science–and simple life saving mRNA vaccines–and dying in droves in our hospitals as I type.
“On Biden’s first day in office he cancelled the Keystone XL Pipeline which directly led to an oil shortage and higher prices.”
Pretty neat trick, considering the pipeline was not yet operational and hadn’t been transporting any oil.
Oil prices are based in large part on speculation, not physical inventory.
In other words, the price of oil has little to do with the actual supply but depends on some predictions by predatory financiers as to what could happen in a few years.
Great system.
At the same time (starting in 2019) we were net exporters of oil (both refined and crude, by the way…we’ve been net exporters of refined oil since 2011), we were STILL importing Russian oil. https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1084-june-3-2019-2013-us-crude-oil-imports-have-been-less-102-million#:~:text=Imports%20of%20crude%20oil%20to,such%20as%20Canada%20(45%25) We’re also the largest producer of crude oil in the world (20% of all oil produced, compared to Saudi Arabia at 12%, and Russia at 11%); and the biggest refined oil producer in the world. We have plenty of oil–no one’s begging the Saudis for oil. The price of oil is based on speculation, not so much on production. That’s why it fluctuates so quickly–actual production fluctuations are MUCH slower.
It turns out that “energy independence” and “oil independence” don’t mean what you think they mean. But you might ask yourself why, if we’re the biggest producer of oil AND we’re still net exporters of oil (and we are, despite your poor view of Biden), why we import oil at all…
Some links for your edification:
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=709&t=6
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php
And, in any case, we should maybe use that exceptional American ingenuity and start developing alternatives so we don’t have to trade our descendants’ future for our current convenience.
The Keystone Pipeline runs from Alberta to Oklahoma.
Most of Minnesota’s gas is refined in Northern Minnesota.
For more details see
https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2021/05/fact-check-the-keystone-pipeline-is-not-closed-and-is-not-causing-the-gas-shortage-on-the-east-coast.html
TFG “supported” the development of the vaccines, chiefly by a catchy nickname, which was yet another reason why (primarily) Republicans have been so reticent to get it – “it was developed too fast…it hasn’t been tested!” As we quickly learned when Biden took office, there was zero plan to actually distribute the vaccine – I recall TFG babbling about everyone getting vaccinated by the Army in Wal-Mart parking lots – perhaps that was actually his “plan?” In an event, its part of a long list of things he didn’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t get done that he promised he would, during his four ludicrous, damaging years.
Those high prices sure demonstrate what a failure Trump in handling the pandemic and running the economy into the ground. Fortunately we now have a president who understands something about business and economics. I still can’t believe trustfund loser and lifelong failure Trump was actually president.
I can’t believe after four years failure, disgrace and damage, even without the horrible mishandling of the pandemic that killed so many, 12,000,000 MORE people thought, “let’s have more of that.” Putting aside party affiliation and demagoguery, that fact reminds me many forget – the lesser of two evils is always the actual lesser of two evils.
This reminds me of:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Perhaps changing a few words to Ukrainians, freedom fighters etc. etc. If we don’t help our friends, why should our friends help us? Seems a lot of folks would prefer we have no friends at all.
The usual false analogy.
Putin does not want to invade. 150,000 troops is not enough to occupy Ukraine. He is simply signaling to the EU and America, he will not allow Raytheon etc ballistic missiles installed in Ukraine pointed at Moscow, any more than we would allow Russian made hypersonic missiles installed in Cuba or Mexico.
Also, at least 40% of Ukrainians are fine with a Russian alliance, as they are ethnic Russians. 95% of Crimea is ethnic Russian. By contrast, neo-nazi activity is common in West Ukraine, who are not shy about their hatred for Russian Ukrainians. And Anthony Blinken is as much a Russophobe in Washington DC as anybody, who also happens to have had a professional relationship through his WestExec partnership, with a great many of our weapons contractors salivating at the idea of an extended conflict in Ukraine.
Besides, a lot of this is just a distraction from increasing discontent about Covid policy, less than healthy economic news and cratering Dem and Biden poll numbers.
William, please clarify. Russophobe or Russophile?
Thanks.
Blinken would feel totally justified to start a full scale war against Russia. He thinks we would win. But we don’t go to war to win, we go to war to spend money, and to distract Americans from our elite looting America.
We would lose a war against Russia.
Btw – russo-phobic
Is your contention that multiple countries are applying sanctions, the Ukrainian people are m preparing for war, Russian troop movement are.all in a plan to distract Bidens poor poll numbers?
We have been antagonizing Russia since Yeltsin, and especially since 2016. The CIA and State Department have been active in Ukraine since 2012-13. Our gov is always ready to use Russia to distract Americans, and can easily behind the scene, poke Putin and Russia in the eye, leading Putin to act. But none of that will ever be reported in our media, because our government needs him to be Evil incarnate, so they can act like they are Good, Pure and True.
Well, WHD, since you have always sensitive to illegitimate efforts at “regime change”, that appears to be what Putin is up to in Ukraine, a functioning democracy. So to be apologizing for Putin and his invasion is to be rather indifferent to the health of world democracy.
God knows how or where you get your ideas that anyone in the US government wants a “full scale war” with nuclear power Russia. That’s simply absurd, and renders anything that follows in the “analysis” equally unlikely. There is unfortunately the risk of interaction of NATO, US and Russian soldiery considering their proximity in say, Estonia. But a shooting war with Russia is the last thing Biden or Blinken or the Pentagon wants, and anyone saying otherwise has their own agenda.
As for this idea that anyone did anything in the past 4-5 years to “provoke” Putin (or his eyes) into invading Ukraine, that’s also daft and based on nothing. Putin is getting older and he thinks he is a world historical figure whose purpose is to “regain” Ukraine for the Soviet Union, a regime whose demise Putin thinks was the worst development in human history. Nor does he really have any “security” concerns, and to assert otherwise is simply to repeat Putin’s propaganda. Indeed, he demanded diplomatic actions which he knew simply could not be granted by NATO or elected officials of Ukraine, such a “promising” that Ukraine would never be allowed to join NATO (at a time when there wasn’t the slightest movement toward such a status whatever.) If this has really been about deployment of some weapons systems or other then that would have been his demand. (And such weapon systems were there solely because or his ongoing 8 year war in eastern Ukraine to begin with.)
The Czar’s military appears to be advancing toward major city centers in Ukraine, and has attempted to destroy Ukraine’s air defense and mobilization installations. Thinking that this is somehow mostly the fault of Ukraine, or NATO or Blinken or Biden or the EU is simply refusing to understand reality and denying whose agency is really operating here.
We are fighting Russia by proxy, feeding Ukraine lethal weapons, which keep our weapons contractors fat and happy and hungry for more.
If Putin doesn’t want to invade Ukraine and doesn’t have enough troops, I wonder why Putin is invading the Ukraine.
As for the rest of your post, it appears that you’ve been haunting right wing and/or Russian sites for data. 95% of Ukraine people speak Russian, but that makes them no more Russian than we are English just because we share a language with the people of England. There might be a sizable chunk of people in Ukraine that want to be Russian, but it certainly isn’t anywhere near 40%, and it doesn’t change the fact that they live in an independent country that is NOT Russia. I appreciate that maybe those people didn’t have a whole lot of say when Ukraine was last formed, but neither they nor Russia has any more right to annex areas that they deem to be “Russian” than Mexico has to take Texas back (not that I’d try to stop them). If ethnic Russians and Russian separatists in Ukraine want to be Russian, the answer is to move to Russia, not annex Ukraine. Most Ukrainian people actually REALLY dislike Russia, with only a minority (less than 20%) having any sort of warm feelings for Russia. Meanwhile, since Russia last pulled this stunt in 2014, Ukrainians went from not really being interested in joining NATO (34% in favor, with 43% opposed in March 2014) to being significantly warmer on the idea (46% in favor with only 27% opposed in April 2017). Not that NATO is terribly interested in having the Ukraine join–Ukraine probably couldn’t maintain the stringent requirements of NATO membership. Here’s a good resource to counter the misinformation you’ve been consuming: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2017/10/18/how-ukraine-views-russia-and-the-west/
And why should we care? Well, for the same reason that the Cuban Missile Crisis was a big deal to Europe. When non-NATO members that are close to NATO members–close enough to start to threaten a NATO member–the rest of NATO is obliged to care. That’s where we’re at here. Ukraine borders 4 NATO nations, and European countries aren’t as big as they appear on the map. We may be used to the idea that our country is quite large (US is just shy 3.8 million square miles), but even the largest countries in Europe are much smaller–Ukraine is only 233,000 square miles, and it’s the largest country in Europe, unless you consider Russia in Europe. And Russia intends to make it significantly smaller.
And NATO is what this IS all about. But not for the reasons Kennan mentions. Not that Kennan understood Putin’s motives at the time of the interview mentioned in this article- Kennan’s interview was 2 years before Putin became president of Russia. Putin does not in any way resemble his immediate predecessors. Kennan was wrong that the expansion of NATO was a bad thing, and it wouldn’t matter to Putin, anyway. The reason that Putin doesn’t want the expansion of NATO to Ukraine isn’t that he feels threatened by NATO or that it’s a sign that we’re turning our backs on Russian people (I highly doubt Putin gives a hoot about Russian people, except to ensure that he stays in power–he doesn’t really need the average Russian for that, though), but that he wants to reunite the USSR…and maybe even go beyond that. He wants to EXPAND Russia, and NATO membership of former Soviet block countries gets in the way.
For a guy who you say wants so badly to expand Russia, he has not been doing much of that in the 23 years he’s been in power. That’s strange don’t you think, since the Brookings Institute and most media generally repeat every chance they get that he is an agressor?
As for Brookings, did you know one of their employees got indicted for making up stories about the supposed Putin/Trump connection, spread around for the Official media to repeat ad nauseum?
And are you really ready for another intractable war brought to you by the same people in gov, military, intelligence and media who made such a debacle of Iraq, Lybia, Syria and Afghanistan?
He hasn’t? There’s the Crimean peninsula in 2014, I believe. There’s the active invasion of Ukraine, of course; and the concurrent bloodless coup in Belarus.
While he might not have expanded Russia much earlier in his tenure, he’s definitely making up for lost time.
There was a vote in the Crimea, before that. Overwhelmingly they chose to leave Ukraine, as there are a great many ethnic Russians there, when after the CIA/State Dept assisted “Color Revolution” aka regime change, and the installing of “Yats” by Nuland etc, voices in the new government started talking about ethnic Russians as dogs, etc dehumanization, and started escalating the shelling and fighting in east Ukraine against the ethnic Russians there, which has been going on ever since.
But then most of that has been wiped from the collective American memory, to the degree it was ever present, none of it is discussed in the current flaming of tensions, and of course State/Media propaganda is always so thick. It is funny though, how many of the people who act like the whole of American history is just one long lie of oppression, are now like, everything our government and media tell us is true….
1. While I certainly think we should not have encouraged the revolution in 2014, the idea that the US or the CIA or Nuland (or whomever else you want to name) “caused” the revolution is ridiculous. The Ukrainians were responsible for the rebellion against the pro-Putin president, who was caused to flee not just Kiev, but the country.
2. The idea that the Ukrainian government actively instigated or began a civil war on its own soil against ethnic Russians in the two provinces in the Donbas region is simply preposterous, given that the country shares a enormous border with hyped-up Russian nationalist dictator. Obviously Putin’s Russia would be the only plausible party that would begin the (now 8 year old) war in the eastern regions of Ukraine, and we (after some hesitation, by the way) then authorized military aid to the Ukrainian democracy that is fighting this Putin-backed insurrection.
Try employing Occam’s Razor, or at least ask if your various sources are doing so….
So, you’re saying that if Texas voted to leave the Union, we should be ok with Mexico taking them? I don’t think so. Well, that’s not true. *I’d* be ok with it. But I suspect we’d still make sure we kept Texas, whether or not its residents wanted to stay.
It is a poor analogy, but to make it more precise, if the one party in power in DC, recently installed by Russia or China, and the most extreme elements in that party started talking about killing off those evil Texans, then I imagine Texas might feel justified and maybe even have reason to secede, whatever the laws of the country said.
The Crimean vote was held after the unilateral declaration of independence. It was also held in violation of the Ukrainian Constitution.
Oh? I guess Crimea and Georgia were… what, William? Putin has been aggressively pursuing annexation of all or parts of other countries since at least 2008. Areas of “Russian separatist” control have been “cleansed” of other ethnicities (see, e.g., Georgia) with the help of Russia.
It’s ironic that you’re attacking my source when you are the one that trotted out the 40% Russians in Ukraine nonsense (without citing a source…probably because your source is full of bovine excrement). But I’ll point out that Brookings was not the original source of that article. It was the Council of American Ambassadors, so try again. Also, are you referring to Igor Danchenko? I’m trying to figure out how someone who stopped working for Brookings Institution 6 years before the Steele Dossier was even initiated managed to sully the entire Institution well after his departure. And even if it did, are you suggesting guilt by association? Do you really want to go there? Of course, as you well know, an indictment does not mean a conviction, right? Even Andrew McCarthy, columnist for the (strongly right wing) National Review (and TFG apologist till he committed insurrection), thinks the indictment of Danchenko is politically motivated, and probably does not reflect that the information provided by him was false. In fact, he points out that the Durham indictments themselves make no such claim–they only allege that Danchenko lied about /whom/ he got the information from, not that the information itself is false. That seems to suggest that, perhaps, the Trump-Russia connection is real, and since the substantive evidence is pointing in that direction, the only way to try to deflect it is to arrest someone for not revealing his sources. You were saying?
“Also, at least 40% of Ukrainians are fine with a Russian alliance, as they are ethnic Russians.”
Ethnic Ukrainians no doubt have some memory of the famine Putin’s role-model Stalin deliberately engineered in Ukraine, killing upwards of 4 million people.
History casts a long shadow.
Interestingly, history does not apply for those Americans who advocate for wars we can’t win.
I don’t know of any Americans who are advocating getting directly involved in this war. I’m sure that, in the fullness of things, there are some, but their voices appear to be pretty faint.
Then why is my anti-war deconstruction of the propaganda so vociferously challenged in these pages?
Warmongers in America do not require their supporters to fight for war, they just require them to not question the propaganda, and attack anyone who does.
Um, perhaps because your “deconstruction” is itself nothing but Putin apologetics and propaganda?
That is exactly what people said to me in 2003 when I argued against going into Iraq – Saddam apologist!!!
And of course the same thing since 2016 every time I pointed out a story about Trump turned out to be false.
Well, you were told that by neo-cons and “conservatives” in 2003, not progressives. The left pretty unanimously opposed Bush’s War.
Anyway, in 2003 you quite properly objected to an unjust, illegal war by the US, and in 2022 you are apologizing for an unjust, illegal war by Putin. Not sure that makes much sense.
The fact that Bush’s neocon propaganda was false in 2003 does not mean that Putin’s propaganda in 2022 is true. In fact its laughably false. You may want to study Hitler and Goebbels’ propaganda against Czechoslovakia in 1938 when they invaded that country to protect the Germans in the Sudetenland….Czar Putin certainly has done so!
I am not apologizing for Putin. I am holding the propaganda of my own government and liberals accountable. And if you think your government is not beating you over the head with propaganda, then you are willingly consuming it.
“Then why is my anti-war deconstruction of the propaganda so vociferously challenged in these pages?”
Because your “anti-war deconstruction” is based on false information. You can go ahead and be anti-war, and many of us would be with you. But you’re not doing that. You’re excusing Russian aggression based on, ironically enough, false propaganda. We won’t be going to war to protect Ukraine (though we may be able to do some things at Ukraine’s request without putting troops on the ground /in Ukraine/). We will likely have troops on the ground in NATO countries to protect them from further incursion, and to provide aid without entering Ukraine. That is in our best interest as an allied nation. We MAY go to war to protect NATO allies because we have an obligation, but likely only if Russian aggression extends beyond Ukraine’s borders (shelling is surprisingly close to allied borders). I honestly HOPE this isn’t going to pull us into a war, though I’m not optimistic. But I’m also not making up nonsense to justify NOT going to war to protect our allies if the situation arises.
“Warmongers in America do not require their supporters to fight for war, they just require them to not question the propaganda, and attack anyone who does.”
Does the same thing apply to warmongers in Russia?
“And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
Every country has people hungry for war. Gaze into their media enough and you become one too…
Read today’s news.
Yes, I know, the whole history of the peace of the last 70 years is over, the world is utterly changed, Putin is the new Hitler.
The 1990’s were the short-lived era of Western triumphalism, bookended by Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History” at one end and the neocons’ “Project for a New American Century” at the other. The USSR had collapsed into the dustbin of history and Russia was just something to step over where it was in the way. No one on the left would have quarreled substantially with Kennan’s remarks, but Western capital was limbering up to bestride the globe, and the mainstream discourse brooked no contrary sentiments.
None of that is germane to the present, however. Putin uses national mythologies to manipulate the Russian elderly and the credulous Western media, but he cares as much about Russia (having spent 20 years putting its wealth into his pockets and those of his cronies) as Trump cares about America. The imperative to defeat Putin has very little to do with Ukrainian sovereignty or the welfare of the Ukrainian people (were that it did, but the world is full of oppressions). Putin leads the movement with which this moment in history is seized – that of power and wealth sufficiently concentrated, at last, to throw off the fitful aspirations of the people to self-determination and install autocracy everywhere. Apart from their rhetorical usefulness, the autocratic movement by definition regards national boundaries and national interests with contempt, which is why we see Republican opinion leaders throwing in with Putin and against America.
The left has no illusions about Western motives: they’re principally about serving the interests of a certain segment of Western wealth. But this segment desires a framework of global stability that, so it happens, doesn’t foreclose progress toward free and decent societies. There is no conceivable doubt as to which is the lesser evil at this time.
One thing I haven’t seen yet is how the Afghanistan disaster fed into Russia thinking about invading Ukraine. I’m sure that after watching the debacle that was our Afghan withdrawal, leaving thousands of Americans and Afghan’s that helped our military behind not to mention 85 BILLION in military equipment, Russia felt comfortable. Weakness always emboldens bullying, always!
Joe, do you think Putin would ever entertain the idea that the US would resort to force to protect Ukraine?
RB, Putin must not be afraid of much pushback, he has 150k troops deployed to overthrow a country of 45 million people. Add into the Ukraine has an army of 255k, with the possibility of 1.2 million NATO troops. Putin must have some tough SOB’s to do all that with 150,000 troops.
Again: There is no “possibility” of any NATO troops.
Russia has nuclear weapons; Ukraine does not. Russia is ruled by a megalomaniacal ethnonationalist who is, unfortunately, in a position to play Tsar. No, he doesn’t need to fear pushback from Ukraine.
So you admit the REPs are weak. As is their top bully: Trump. Bullies are always operating from fear & insecurities, too. That’s why they back down when confronted by numbers of folks. Trump would disappear back into the voice in his mind if we all stood up to him. You know this, right???
LK, sorry to disappoint you but it is the Democrats that are admitting they were not tough enough in 2014 when Putin took Crimea. Obama and Biden’s top military adviser said we should have acted stronger. President Trump dropped the MOAB in his first month or so (much to the dismay of Liberals) and had no problem with letting folks know a new sheriff was in town. Let’s see, 2014 Putin takes Crimea, 4 years of President Trump no activity, 13 months into Biden’s term Putin takes on Ukraine…. Surely a coincidence….
No, one can’t say Trump did nothing. He consistently worked to undermine sanctions against Russia. He lobbied against sanctions legislation in 2017, and then made lackluster (even for him!) efforts to implement the law.
There are other efforts:
No sanctions for trying to kill Sergei Skripal (who was in the UK, one of our allies, at the time)
Lifting sanctions on oligarchs who interfered in the US election (even some Republicans were mad about that one)
Refusing to acknowledge the anniversary of Russia’s illegal invasion of Georgia
No public condemnati0n of a Russian attack on Ukrainian naval ships
Asking that Russia be readmitted to the G7 Group
Freezing US aid to Ukraine
Repeating Russian propaganda about Ukraine.
You left out withdrawing from Syria to allow Russian-backed forces to control the country.
Actually, Joe, the timeline is that Putin began a proxy war in eastern Ukraine in 2014, which he escalated during the four years of Trump, preparing the way for an invasion of the country.
He also successfully worked to get the unqualified Putin-admirer and popular vote loser Donald Trump “elected” for 4 years, during which time Trump (as Putin hoped) irreparably divided the nation and encouraged anti-democratic and pro-autocratic thinking among the American right and right-leaning independents. Trump served these purposes well, and is continuing to do so with his blather about the “genius” of his strongman idol, Putin.
Finally, Putin’s Puppet Trump worked diligently during those 4 years to undermine the NATO alliance and America’s relations with its European allies, which was also likely seen by Putin as a necessary step to regaining control over Ukraine via military means.
So I don’t think the Trump interregnum can really be seen as a persuasive case for “deterring” Putin’s expansionism and aggression…
Talking about Afghan disasters, read up on Russia’s Afghan experience.
Yup, Trump really did screw that up – he got absolutely rolled in his withdrawal negotiations. Which isn’t a surprise for a guy with zero negotiating skills.
It really was a terrible deal Biden inherited from Trumps negotiations with the Taliban Joe. And before we put on the rose-colored glasses about what Russia would or wouldn’t be doing if Biden/Trump were president I’ll remind you of the withholding of military aid to Ukraine in a shakedown of the Ukrainian president to get Trump political dirt on Biden and his family. If we’re going to speculate here in a comment section it’s important to remember all the facts.
No one – certainly not a Republican of note or can take even remotely seriously (and this includes Trump, who never actually gives any actual solutions) – ever says how Biden should have got us out of Afghanistan, especially given the situation Trump left behind. And no one ever says why Trump failed at getting us out of there after blustering that he would do so, and how easy it would be.
Of course they don’t. That would put them in the unfortunate position of having to make concrete suggestions, and of needing to have ideas beyond opposition to whatever the Democrats are doing.
“One thing I haven’t seen yet is how the Afghanistan disaster fed into Russia thinking about invading Ukraine.”
It doesn’t seem to be what you meant; but perhaps Putin is indeed thinking of Afghanistan. When the Soviets got bogged down there in the 80s, the drain contributed to the eventual collapse of the USSR. It may very well be that Putin remembers that and assumes the US and West are similarly depleted.
I suspect he has miscalculated though, and despite early victories in Ukraine will soon find occupying hostile territory is, again, draining on his resources. There are already reports of unrest in Russia. His plan may have backfired – rather than growing his domestic base & inspiring nationalist pride within Russia, he may be losing support while Russia is cutoff from trade & trying to conduct a war of choice. It’s not hard to imagine there are opportunistic autocrats-in-waiting looking for a Putin mistake so they can pounce.
Russia had it’s own Afghan disaster from 1979-1989.
We helped it along by providing the Afghans with weapons.
I’m curious why we didn’t invade Mexico when the Russians left Afghanistan. Maybe Putin is as savvy as TFG says.
Kennan’s statements made sense, and there’s also the unwritten understanding between Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush. But then, there’s the deep unease in the Baltic and other eastern European nations after years of domination by the Soviet Union. Those countries are strongly committed to NATO. The Russian-speaking minority in Estonia is said to be extremely loyal to their Estonian government, not nostalgic about Russia. And Ukraine actually wrote the intention to eventually join NATO into their constitution.
If you listen to some of the serious lefties, or watch RTV, as I sometimes do routinely due to circumstances, not intention, you’ll hear that Putin has been backed into a corner, that the Russian concerns are perfectly legitimate, and above all, that this is somehow still the age of the Yalta conference or even the Congress of Vienna (!!) when powerful nations had the routine right to order smaller nations into or out of international power blocs. What nonsense!
And oh, you now have Trump’s great friendliness toward Putin, and Don Jr.’s recent statement admiring Putin’s latest move into Ukraine as “genius.” Imagine Europe’s predicament if Trump were still in office!
I think it was the Stable Genius himself who described his puppetmaster’s “moves” as “genius”.
TPT has DW.com, news service for the US from Berlin. (5:30 TPT 2-3)
Their coverage includes some excellent interviews of people close to the Russian border. One woman who lives on the river that is the border between Russia and her small town explains the language barrier between Ukrainian speakers and Russian speakers. She pointed out that very few Russian-speakers in Ukraine speak Ukrainian and vice versa.
She said the television is in Ukrainian, but Russian speakers watch the stations in Russia. Their sources could not be more different. She said Ukraine should have TV stations for their Russian-speaking citizens, in order to bring the two closer together.
Communication, propaganda and spoken language are deeply involved in the Eastern European / Russian relationship problems.
Last night DW interviewed Russian speakers in Donbass who said they were afraid of being shelled (the shelling was from the Russian supported separatists).
They were so happy Putin had made their region “Independent ” and told the interviewer they loved Russia.
Two worlds next to each other based on lies and propaganda. They are poor and backward by any measure. The last thing any of them need is more destruction and misery.
It’s difficult to remember back to the time Kennan was speaking of, but as I recall it was the American Left, not the “conservatives”, who were advocating for a “peace dividend”, i.e. a reduction in “defense” spending (finally) after decades of defending freedom” from the Communist hordes.
Obviously there was no peace dividend and I suppose expanding NATO was an element of keeping the MIC running at full speed. It’s surely true that the Clinton admin didn’t do a very good job aiding Russian democracy, as the country quickly fell into extreme and widespread poverty, all of which gave democracy a bad name and gave Czar Putin his start on the road back to Russian autocracy and presidencies for life.
It’s comical to watch our “conservatives” of today attempt to rewrite history as the Cold War being solely about combating communism. The actual rightwing rhetoric of the day was about defending democracy and democracies. Whole books were written along those lines and that was what motivated the speeches of the day. Indeed, this defending freedom and liberty was the “conservative” rhetoric for “conservatism’s” last war: Cheney’s War to Liberate Iraq’s Oil from Saddam. Then we heard nothing but “madman” and “dictator”.
Putin’s rhetoric now is that Ukraine is not a legitimate nation, and is really a part of “Russia”. That’s obviously profoundly anti-democratic, but the American right is apparently less interested in defending democracy in the world as opposed to undermining a democratically elected American president. The American right of course, now prefers “presidents” that lose the popular vote by 3-7 million votes. So Czar Putin looks pretty good as well! Just ask Tucker Carlson and our own Stable Genius, who is as usual gushing about Vladimir the Strong.
Anyway, celebrating autocrats invading democracies is quite a change in “conservative” ideology since the days of St Reagan (and even Cheney!), despite what they may tell themselves to the contrary. Part of Putin’s gambit in working to elect Trump in 2016 was to sow massive discord and divisiveness within American culture and democracy. In this he has succeeded handsomely.
What is hilarious is how this administration has done everything wrong to empower Putin. We shut down our own oil and gas industry, then beg the world to increase their supply when the prices shoot up? We throw open our own borders for invaders, then tell Russia they can’t invade the Ukraine? Mitt Romney was correct in his assessment of the threat of Russia to the US and the world, and Obama made a joke out of it?
“We throw open our own borders for invaders, then tell Russia they can’t invade the Ukraine?”
Are you really comparing illegal immigration to an invasion by a foreign power?
“We throw open our own borders for invaders”
We’ve been invaded? I think the last time I saw a tank was at MN historical society a couple months ago…
It would be difficult to describe what you wrote as anything but hyperbolic, robert. We allowed “invaders” into America so we can’t complain when Putin invades Ukraine? Why does Ukraine have to suffer for our sins at the border? You need a short course in logic.
I’m sure you see some indisputable truth in what you are saying, but sadly these views are not based in any verifiable version of reality.
It is literally the exact opposite of what you have said.
Wow, listening to Biden try to be forceful versus Putin and Russia was just sad. Nothing he said was going to deter Putin one bit. His “I’m helping with oil prices” is so disingenuous it’s laughable. If Biden wanted to help with oil prices he’d lift Keystone pipeline restrictions, open Federal land for drilling and get back to oil independence. With the Biden Administration leading the way, we are in trouble!! He couldn’t even state an end game in Ukraine that would give the Ukrainian people any hope! Wow!!
Yes indeed. We know that “strength” against Russia means slavish adoration of its leader as “smart” and a “genius” for engineering the invasion of Ukraine by declaring statelets “independent”. Because the real endgame in Ukraine is allowing Czar Putin to succeed in his illegal invasion and annex the country!
Putin has made his decision to begin a (Nazi-like) war of aggression and the sanctions against Russia are now in place. He wasn’t going to be deterred, and now has brought down an economic strangulation of his country.
But I’m sure that Trumpolini will promise a removal of all sanctions and recognition of a Putin puppet regime as the “hope” for Ukraine, Joe. In short, appeasement. Cause for enthusiasm indeed!
Strange, allowing China to purchase Canadian oil unimpeded is sending a message Putin? I’m not sure what you’ve been smoking, but it sounds fun.
Matt, this may come as a surprise to you but Keystone pipeline being up and running would bring that Canadian oil to USA. Did you think that when Biden shut down the pipeline, Canada would just quit producing oil? Also you may be surprised that we buy oil from Russia instead of drilling here in America. Not really a well thought out argument.
It may come as a surprise to you that we drill our oil here in the US (#1 oil producer in the world, by a LOT, about 12% more than #2, and that’s AFTER an 8% drop in 2020), export oil to other countries (#3 oil exporter), AND we import oil from Russia (#2 oil producer). We remain net EXPORTERS of both crude and refined oil. Oh, and by the way, we get WAY more (7x more) of our imported oil from Canada than Russia, even without that god forsaken pipeline. Why we both export AND import oil, I don’t know. That’s a topic for smarter (or at least better educated on the topic) people than you or I. But the bottom line is that you’re wrong. You keep flinging stuff at the walls that you have to know isn’t true. I’ve already addressed this bit of nonsense above. So, what’s your motive?
No, it wouldn’t . Trump made this country weaker trying to push oil and gas. Trump played right into Russia (and China’s) hands. Lifelong loser and failure with no business sense was a terrible president.
1. Joe, this may come as a surprise to you, but the US began increasing its purchases of the particular type of viscous crude from Russia in 2019 when Trump placed sanctions on Venezuela. So our purchases of Russian oil began increasing under Trump. It is true that they also increased during mid 2021, a few months into Biden’s presidency. There was no particular reason to reduce them, as Biden and Putin had recently had their first personal meeting.
2. For the 9,000th time, contrary to rightwing misinformation Keystone was not remotely close to being built or “up and running” when it was finally cancelled, so it could have had no impact on absolutely anything, either in 2021 or in Feb 2022, when Putin decided to invade Ukraine and install a pro-Russian puppet regime instead of a democracy.
3. Keystone would have been a pipeline for Canadian tar sands oil. There is no reason to think that the tar sands would have ever been fully developed even if that pipeline was built. But in any event there is absolutely no connection between Keystone and importing Russian crude. As I said, the increased importation of Russia oil began under Trumpolini.
I would bet money that you wrote the bulk of that comment before you heard so much as a syllable of what the President had to say.
RB, you lose your money. Watched every minute of Biden talk about sanctions and how he’s helping reduce gas prices… Lots of words, nothing much said!
Stop hyperventilating. Gas prices are based on speculation. Once the speculators get their undies back in order, it’ll be fine. Besides, our descendants could probably benefit from a little oil deterrence. Plus, we use pretty much the same amount of oil that we produce, and more than 2x the oil per capita that Russians use. Surprisingly, Canada uses more oil per capita than we do. But then, they have plenty enough to send to us. Maybe we should start living within our means?
A week ago Biden’s foreign policy approval was 40%. I wonder what it is today? His overall approval ranking is 37%….. You look at Afghanistan withdrawal disaster, buying oil from Russia while sanctioning them and then a mild response to Putin invading Ukraine, makes you wonder how Biden’s approval is even in the 30’s%?
Joe, I find it interesting that your many comments about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are either about the price of gas in the US, or smirking about President Biden’s approval ratings. Nothing about the actual invasion, or the contempt it shows for the rule of law and the postwar order, or even about the morality of an unprovoked invasion.
Are these things trivial to you?